Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Rebuilding the book room

A few snapshots from the weekend. Moving is such fun. Unpacking is even more fun.

Upstairs hallway: morning, and the book boxes are stacked four and five high, three rows deep:

Book room: what was the smallest of the bedrooms in the house, now reborn as a library with pine shelves on all sides. One north-facing window, so the sunlight won't fade spines and dust jackets. Late morning and the bookshelves are now all in place and sturdily shimmed, awaiting their books:

After working much of the day while also managing to take several long breaks to get outside in the sun, by late afternoon I had made significant inroads:

Evening was coming, I was getting tired, but I made it over halfway through the boxes before finally quitting for the night. The picture's blurry because it was sunset and, as I say, I was tired, but the room itself is coming into focus quite nicely:

Evenings this week I'll be filling the rest of those shelves. All we need now are a few comfortable chairs, an ottoman, and a decent reading lamp. As I was unpacking, I put aside three more cartons-worth of books to bring back to the shop - and now I'm off to price them and get them out for sale. Hard-hearted, I know, but I'm serious about this culling business.

I brought another carton in to the shop this morning, but it's getting more and more difficult as the boxes dwindle down. I now have everything on the shelves that was easy to shelve. What's left: family books, books I want to keep but don't necessarily want out taking up shelf space, subjects I once cared about but have grown away from as my reading tastes have changed - it's so hard to sort out! I was frustrated last night, thinking I'll have to find somewhere in the house to stow twenty-odd cartons after all. Which I don't want to do. But I can't keep looking at those boxes in the hall every day. Disorder! Ack!

You have empty shelves?? Cherish them... Put a pretty little bowl on one, or a vase of flowers, or a statuette or something.